School Days – owl day

This week’s school days was more eventful than normal. The last week before half term, and it feels like they’ve only just gone back after Christmas.

Here’s this week.

Sick day

It’s not often N has a day off sick. This was his second day this year, which is a lot for him. On Sunday he came down with a horrible cold, which continued into Monday. So he had the day off (being bored – at least he does find a sick day boring, so there’s not really any point staying off unless he really needs to.

With the flu and bad colds around this year, it seems there’s been a lot of children off sick. I bumped into his old teacher who said how surprised they were not to see N because it’s so rare he’s ill.  Good farm living really helps build an immunity it seems.

VIP

N hadn’t been made VIP for a long time, so I was pleased when he came home with a VIP sticker this week. And it was for English – I think that’s the first time he’s had it for english because usually his maths is his strongest.

Reading books and levels

After the last 4 weeks of having oddly brought home level 6/brown reading level books, N’s now moved up to box 3. But instead of going back to purple level/8 that he’d been on since before Christmas, he’s been given level 7/turquoise.  These are a big jump up from the ones he’s had for the last 4 weeks obviously, but annoying that he’s now effectively 4 weeks behind where he should be with his reading if he’d continued having the same books home. Now he’s having to start a harder level again.

I did mention that I’m not sure level 7 is still correct. I’ve been back through the books he’s had where I can find the title and level online, and he definitely had purple level books home. So we’re now back one level rather than the two. Hopefully either N will grasp the harder level faster and move through the books well, or we’ll hit the books we’ve already had sooner rather than later.

The OH tells me to stop interferring and that the teachers probably get annoyed with parents moaning, but it’s hard when children go up and down, and moving up a level is hard. You want their reading to be consistent rather than changing all the time. Hopefully he will actually read his books over half term, although it’s not looking optimistic so far. They have funny font he’s not keen on.

Apostrophes and there, their, they’re

N does seem to like grammar. I think because it’s either right or wrong and logical.  This week they’ve been doing apostrophes for missing letters, so could’ve, can’t etc.  And they’ve also got to grasps with the 33 ‘there’s’.  I was surprised at how well N understands it, althouhg I’m not sure whether he’ll remember it ongoing.

Grammar is my thing, so I’m pleased he’s finding it ok to learn. And all those adults who get confused, N’s tips for remembering:

• If you can replace it with ‘my’ = their
• Over there
• They are = they’re

He did say he was confused about it so I’ve reminded him that when he’s in class and confused, he needs to ask for help or more explanation.

Owl day

This week was N’s class trip to the secondary school for their Owl day.  N told me it was non-uniform due to the cold weather at the moment but I wasn’t convinced that was right until I read a school email – I really should believe him because it’s rare he gets things wrong if they’ve been told something.

They spent the day learning about owls, dissecting owl pellets and just generally finding out owl facts to tie in with the work they’ve been doing in school.

It’s now half term, so we’ll be doing a bit of work (N helping on the farm), before we’re off for a couple of days.

Hope you enjoy your half term if you’re off this week.